MAHARASHTRA: Pravin Nikam, who said no to an MNC job, is fighting for gender equality, and helping economically- marginalised students to get a better education, and grooming them as future leaders, Sudhir Suryawanshi reports.
Pravin Nikam pursued his Master in Human Rights and Politics at the London School of Economics in 2020 and was ready to get plenty of offers from corporate and global firms, but he, instead, decided to work for the oppressed and marginalized sections of society.
After coming to India, 30-year-old Pravin then registered the Samata Centre –action for impact foundation to identify socially and economically marginalized students.
“My motto of life is to represent and to give representation to those who do not get representation in the social and economic discourse of the society. The students from rural areas equally aspire to be leaders but they don’t get the right platform that we aim to provide through our Samata centre,” Pravin said.
He said so far they have groomed 500 students through their online and physical classes. “We are happy that most of the students are getting admissions to the top universities and colleges of the world such as IIT, JNU in India, Oxford, and Cambridge in London. We want to see them emerge as impactful leaders. We help the students by giving information about various international scholarships, and even extending help to fill out the form and write notes,” Pravin added.
“We are also working as facilitators between students and the government. We are focusing on mentoring, coaching and training. The policy-making is where we want to increase our presence,” he said. Pravin’s father was working with a private firm in Pune. This private firm was not doing well so employees of this firm suffered a lot.
“Life was very tough at a young age. I witnessed the suffering faced by my father. So after Class 12, I got admission in an engineering course as I did not want to face the hardship again. But in the second year, I visited Assam and it changed my life,” he added.
In Assam, he met a girl named Roshani. “The story of Roshani was very horrifying. She was forced to leave the school because of her menstrual cycle. Roshani was a very bright girl but she did not get the opportunity to pursue her education and see the world. After that visit, I could not sleep for a couple of days and decided to work for Roshani like girl students,” Pravin said.
“So, one fine day, I told my father that I did not want to further pursue engineering and wanted to study politics. I left engineering and did graduation in Political Science in Pune and then LLB, and then pursued a one-year master’s course at the LSE in London where Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar too studied,” he added.
Pravin said then he started working for gender equality. “I travelled to several parts of India and realized that India is different. The large sections of the society still away from the basic facilities and good education, then decided to work for this real India and decided to help them as part of main social discourse,” he added.
The Yashwantrao Chavan foundations recognised Pravin’s social work and announced him the Best
Youth leadership award and on Sunday, he will be conferred with this leadership award in Mumbai by NCP chief Sharad Pawar.